INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
As English has become an international language that has been used for many years in this world, many people from different nationalities and cultural backgrounds learn English as their Second Language (L2) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to communicate among them. Therefore, English has gained the status of a prestigious language worldwide. Nadeem and Arshad (2010) stated that everyone learning English wants to gain full profits of modern education, research, and business fields. That means people realize that learning English is important for their future career.
When people who use English as their Second Language (L2) or English as Foreign Language (EFL) to communicate, however, their mother tongue (L1) can influence the way they speak English. The way they speak English might be different because of the imperfection of each speaker to acquire English as its native speakers do. It happened due to different background of language variety.This phoneomenon can clearly be seen from pronunciation aspects.
Those aspects can create a variation called as an accent. Behravan (2012:16) defined accents as “varieties in pronunciations of a certain language and refers to the sounds that exist in a person's language”. Furthermore, Becker (1995:37) also stated that “accent can identify the speaker’s regional origin or national/ethnic identity”. Therefore, accent can be known as a person’s status
belonging by guessing the sound and pronunciation in language she/he uttters.
Accents are different in quality. Moyer (2007) stated that accent can connect to social belonging, identity and communicative fluency. Furthermore, accent includes prosody; intonations, tone, stress, pronunciations and rhythm.
Additionally, when L2 or EFLlearners talking in English, they use their strong accents that may influence the meaning when they are pronouncing some words that are not similar compared to common English pronunciation that we heard on television and class.
People who learning English in ESL or EFL contexts, like mostly people in ASEAN countries. Based on official statistics of the United Nation (2019) there are 48 countries in Asia. The people might face difficulties talking in English because of their different language background. One of the examples is Vietnamese. Based on the writer experience when talking to Vietnamese native speakers, the writer found some unique accents when they pronounced like [westən] for “question” but it heard like “western”and [neɪl] for “snail” but it heard like “nail”. It might be ambiguous for several people that are not
familiar with those words above, and it can cause misunderstanding because they have similar sounds with other English words. Therefore, homophones can also happen because of new specific accents in a group. From this observation, the writer is interested to see bigger phenomena of Vietnamese English accent.
Vietnam is one of the developing countries in the world and grows faster in economics which is located in mainland Southeast Asia. On the other hand Vietnam region is divided into three; southern, central, and northern, it becomes one of the famous tourism destinations, whereas, upgrading economics’ world and employment opportunities in Vietnam are so important for their life. That is why nowadays, English has become a second language (L2) in Vietnam.
However, English as a Second Language in Vietnam which they shall master and speak English actively since primary school until varsity levels, but Vietnamese alphabet is different from English alphabet. When we read Vietnamese alphabet we can rely on the real words because it has different pronunciation on its tone. It comes from this example “yêu quá em Ơi” [iu wa em oi] that means “how lovely you are, babe” in English. When we look at
Vietnamese alphabet, it makes some Vietnameses struggle to master English for basic daily conversation to interact with people outside the country based on the writer experienced.
Therefore, from this background and urgency, the writer will discuss about the Vietnamese English accent production and this research aims to compare Vietnamese English Accent especially in Southern region and American English Accent. A comparison of Vietnamese and English may begin at the smallest unit of language: the phoneme or speech sound. The southern Vietnamese accent was chosen as the concern of this research because the
Southern region is undoubtedly the business and economic hub of the nation.
This region has beautiful beaches and islands support its region developments. Moreover, this region is the famous region in Vietnam because of all the economic growth also tourism destinations are centered here.
The writer wants to compare Vietnamese Southern and American Southern English because most of people in Indonesia share the same problems or experiences use English like Vietnamese. In the end, it becomes an interest for Indonesians because starting from requiring English can encourage people in Indonesia using it in terms of communication, especially between Indonesian and Vietnamese in the field of business, exchange and education.
That is why this research is chosen. The writer believes that through this research new pattern of sound changes from Vietnamese English Accent to American English Accent can be observed and drawn.
1.2 Research Question
Based on the background of study, the writer formulates the research question as follow:
How are the consonant productions of Southern Vietnamese English accent different from American English accent?
1.3 Research Objective
In conducting this research, the objective is to figure out the differences of consonant productions of Southern Vietnamese English accent and American English accent.
1.4 Use of the Study
1.4.1 Theoretical Use
The writer hopes this theory can use and in this research the speakers can apply phonology theory between the two languages. Moreover, people are easy to understand each other by understanding the theory that they implement while having communication interaction.
1.4.2 Practical Use
After conducting this research, the writer hopes this research can make the readers understand and use the phonetic study properly in daily conversation while using English. So, that can make the meaning of word behind the accent clear while having conversations. Different way of pronouncing consonants might be a strong factor why the speakers cannot speak English correctly. It also can create sound changes.
1.5 Scope of Study
In connection with this research, the writer limits the discussion about comparing accents between Vietnamese English accent and American English accent by looking at the consonants production of Vietnamese speakers and American speakers. The writer only focuses on 4 native speakers; 3 from Southern Vietnam and one native speaker from America. It will be on audio recording, and the phonetics transcription will be taken from Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary to compare how the consonant of Vietnamese English accent different from American English accent.
